


at the tone, please record your message

by Isi7140



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, The Odyssey - Homer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, CEO, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 06:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1294057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isi7140/pseuds/Isi7140
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s never home.</p>
<p>He left on a business trip years ago, and he hasn't come back.<br/>The legal battle, the marketing, the foreign contractors<br/>Years and years, and he’s never visited.</p>
<p> <br/>Modern AU.  Penelope waits for her husband.  He never returns her calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	at the tone, please record your message

He's never home.

He left on a business trip years ago, and he hasn't come back.  
The legal battle, the marketing, the foreign contractors  
Years and years, and he's never visited.

I try to call, sometimes.  
Dial his work number, wait for it to connect  
to Kyoto, or Hong Kong  
wherever he is now.  
Wait to be told that he’s in a meeting.  
He never calls back.

I understand what his secretaries always tell me.  
He's the founder and CEO of a worldwide corporation  
facing vicious competition  
creating jobs throughout our country.  
So I run the house and manage the stacks of money coming in the mail  
and take myself out to dinner.

They tell me that he's never coming back.  
That he's surely found some young, pretty secretary in Paris  
that I'm a fool to keep waiting.  
They try to convince me to go on a date  
but I tell them I'm not a teenager anymore  
and remember the day I first met him  
and the way he smiled.

(at the tone, please record your message)

Maybe this year.  
I sit at the window  
resting my head in my hand  
waiting for Odysseus to come home.


End file.
